The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

esonn · 2016-01-15 12:10:43

Dearest community,

I've been using Linux as my primary OS for about 15 years now. I worked with many different distros, starting with SuSE, Red Hat, Debian, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Mint and a few others. The more I got to know a particular distro, the more I tended to dislike features or simply disagree with its defaults; that being said, a lot of "defaults" are not even that easy to customize as you, my dear Archers, know very well. A hammer is a fine tool - but if what you'd need is an axe, you'll ending up either breaking the hammer or the thing you apply your hammer on; irreparably, at times.

When I met Arch, a loving and fulfilling relationship began, and obviously came to last. There was (and is) no single thing that I dislike, or heavily disagree with - and if so, it's almost always upstream trouble.

But in the big picture, it's not only the system that matters so much. The Arch documentation, especially its Wiki, is one of the luckiest places on earth for every Linux user. I even got a lot of answers for other distros years ago through Arch documentation.

From my point of view (admittedly, as a power user), the Arch docs accomplish a very difficult goal to achieve: Giving you all information you need, without bloating things up, but also without requiring too much prior knowledge. I'd say that everyone with a basic technical understanding for computers (and maybe having typed a few shell commands so far), can install and maintain an Arch installation using the Beginner's Guide. Arch being a pro-only, PhD-preferred distro is a myth.

Also - probably because of Arch's nature - the community seems to be composed of a considerably higher-than-average percentage of technical experts from a multitude of disciplines. As long as you follow the basic guidelines of a community (like you have to with every community), you are welcome and people help, willingly.

This is why I wanted to say thank you to all of you. Thank you Judd, thank you Aaron, thanks to all you Arch developers, the core team, admins, ops, moderators, packagers, documenters and all the rest of this wonderful community. Thanks to you, I can use what, for me personally, is the best Linux system on earth.

Call me old-fashioned, but I needed this to be said out loud. Let's keep this spirit alive for many years to come, thank you all!

PS, in order to comply with the forum guidelines: yes, there already are some thank-you notes here - but as far as Google hit me, they are a bit dusty already, so I figured a renewal won't hurt. The community helps constantly, but a thank you only lasts a second.

jasonwryan · 2016-01-15 17:16:13

These are always welcome, but I will still merge it with the Official Arch is the Best thread, because that is how we roll...

Skyxer · 2016-02-09 16:31:22

Can't believe five years have passed since I've posted this, and I'm still loving Arch!
Yes, everyone should go arch, I've learnt so much by breaking it, fixing it, installing it and breaking it again.

The wiki and the forums have everything you need, and after all this time there are few other distros that kept my interest like this one.

x33a · 2016-02-10 05:27:27

Haha, so you proved Jason wrong

marcus-s · 2016-02-13 17:31:21

Freedom and choice are two of the most fundamental needs, and rights, of any human being. I think we can agree on that. Everyone loves to be able to make a decision of his or her own, after given the scenario, issue, or problem a thought. Everyone loves to be able to do whatever he or she likes, no questions asked, and it's accepted by anyone.

I was in and out of the Linux waters every now and so often, I wasn't really able to decide what to use.

I have tried, and I mean really tried, to get along with the Windows thing. Nope. I mean Cortana's cool and all that... but in all honesty, it's okay if a smartphone can do that. The tiles are from the AOL software somewhere in the 90's.

Then there is this other behemoth of Linux distributions: Ubuntu. It starts to feel more and more like a separation of the ideals of the Linux community... Unity is something that only runs on Ubuntu itself (funnily enough). I know that there have been efforts to port Unity to Arch (possibly others), but they aren't going very well as it seems. This, somehow, negates the open source community. I mean yeah, Unity's open source... but what use is it if you can not port, or compile it, on other platforms? None. So that makes it, somehow, proprietary in a sense.

Of course there are others I have tried, too. Such as UbuntuGNOME (GNOME 3 replaces Unity) - hmm... well. Then all the other 'buntus. In all my years I eventually crossed paths with SuSE too, and occasionally Gentoo.

Arch is something I also used more and more. Mostly when I needed to try something on Linux, but did not want to waste resources (some work computers were claustrophic). So I pretty much always carried an Arch ISO with me. It's the flexibility, the foundation, the principle, which somehow always steered me back to it.

So eventually, when you think about it long enough, you can't help but to come to the conclusion that Arch is what a free and open OS should be. Arch isn't something predefined with weird tiles or start menus, with global menus like Unity, or docks like on a Mac. It is not something that comes with predefined APIs you have to use. Neither does it come with software Arch thinks you might need, like the bloatware laptops.

Ultimately Arch becomes the absolute reflection of the user itself. So from that perspective - it is the best Linux distro in a subjective way, but the fact that it becomes a reflection of you in bits and bytes, makes it the best Linux distro ever devised - no other distro can take the props and bonus point for achieving that. Arch is what YOU make of it. Be it the ultimate GNOME Desktop, music production suite, 3D Rendering Studio, programming environment... whatever you want, and need, is something Arch can provide - given you want to work with it, learn it, read through the easy-to-use-docs.

If you are willing to do all that, I'm sure you'll never leave again. Like someone else said here, the amount of technically versed people in the community is staggering, and the amount of people who can explain complex things in easy terms for beginners is just as impressive. Again, no other distro community has that on their portfolio.

So yeah, I too believe that Arch is pretty much the best open source distribution to come around since sliced bread.

pika · 2016-02-14 08:33:37

Forum Etiquette wrote:

Maligning other FOSS projects or distributions, or any other operating systems and their users is prohibited. The entire Arch team is happy to volunteer their time and energy to provide you with the Arch Linux distribution, documentation and forums. Kindly show respect toward the volunteers, users and communities of other projects, distributions and operating systems as well. Views, experiences and opinions are always welcome, but unproductive slander is not.

Please read: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … ng_systems

This whole thread isn't respecting other distributions. There is no "best", it is a 100% subjective opinion depending on your own needs and requirements. How can threads like this be tolerated? Please close.

jasonwryan · 2016-02-14 08:38:21

pika wrote:

Forum Etiquette wrote:
Maligning other FOSS projects or distributions, or any other operating systems and their users is prohibited. The entire Arch team is happy to volunteer their time and energy to provide you with the Arch Linux distribution, documentation and forums. Kindly show respect toward the volunteers, users and communities of other projects, distributions and operating systems as well. Views, experiences and opinions are always welcome, but unproductive slander is not.
Please read: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … ng_systems
This whole thread isn't respecting other distributions. There is no "best", it is a 100% subjective opinion depending on your own needs and requirements. How can threads like this be tolerated? Please close.

This is your final warning: trolling isn't welcome here.

pika · 2016-02-14 08:41:53

I do not troll. If you want to ban me for my free opinion, please do so. I respect you but this whole thread is just a bunch of fanboys ranting about anything other than arch.

jasonwryan · 2016-02-14 08:50:12

OK.

marcus-s · 2016-02-16 17:36:50

pika wrote:

I do not troll. If you want to ban me for my free opinion, please do so. I respect you but this whole thread is just a bunch of fanboys ranting about anything other than arch.

I can't speak for the others, but in my post, I didn't rant on other distributions. If you want to use Ubuntu, that's cool man. If you like Windows, that's cool too. Or Solaris, or whatever floats your boat. In my post, I merely pointed out that I like Arch better than the others. Each to his own.

Barconax · 2016-03-10 09:33:58

Hi all.

I just made an account for only to say "THANK YOU" to all these people involved in developing and maintaining Arch Linux.
I have to admit i am not using Arch but Manjaro cause i am happy when i don't have to use the console very often.
But i am very much aware of the fact that there were no Manjaro without all YOUR WORK.
Imho Arch Linux is the BEST base for a user friendly Linux out there.

THANK YOU!

Allan · 2016-03-10 10:51:11

Barconax wrote:

I have to admit i am not using Arch but Manjaro

Pitch forks at the ready!

Trilby · 2016-03-10 11:58:06

Mod note: merged in last two posts.

Daerandin · 2016-04-11 20:59:08

There seem to be a lot of posts about breakage and other issues lately (which is probably expected on a technical support forum), and I felt the need to give a little counterweight against such posts. You don't see people posting about "everything working", but I thought it would be nice for people to see that there are people having a smooth Arch experience.

I have been using Arch Linux for close to three years now (time flies) with hardly any issues at all. During my first year I was admittedly quite inexperienced. I even handled minor issues poorly at times since I was yet to learn proper troubleshooting. But once I got into good system maintenance habits and learned to troubleshoot and fix issues myself, I have not been troubled with anything I would consider real issues. The last 7-8 months or so I've been using the testing repositories, and it has been a smooth experience without complications of any kind.

My sincerest thanks to the devs for creating and maintaining Arch Linux, the happy place for my inner control freak.

x33a · 2016-04-12 05:09:17

Daerandin wrote:

You don't see people posting about "everything working"

That's because such posts will be deleted, especially if someone posted it in its own thread. Your post, on the other hand, is perfectly fine for this thread

vrkalak · 2016-04-12 06:21:48

Allan wrote:

Barconax wrote:
I have to admit i am not using Arch but Manjaro
Pitch forks at the ready!

Somebody get a rope ...

jedi · 2016-04-14 00:20:12

vrkalak wrote:

Somebody get a rope ...

Hey vrkalak!!! Nice to see you my friend. Been a long time! Hope your well...

jcjordyn120 · 2016-06-04 16:44:50

I like Arch Linux, I think it's better than Ubuntu.

simonj2099 · 2016-06-13 22:53:59

I've just had the thoroughly unpleasant experience of reinstalling Windows 7 on my wife's laptop. Up until a couple of days ago I had managed to successfully avoid the dark side (windoze, win**** or whatever you want to call it) for the last few years. My biggest mental scar has been left by the update process. The check for updates procedure seems to result in the scrolling blue line for up to an hour accompanied by the message "this may take some time" - Really?! You don't say! I say an hour but I genuinely believe this could go on for weeks if I leave the laptop on update for long enough. But I lose patience and stop the procedure after an hour - more often than not via the "end task" forced route - and go to shutdown because I have a life. The shutdown procedure is a lottery. If I'm lucky it shuts down after a minute without incident or if I'm not so lucky it takes an hour to shutdown whilst it installs all the updates that it had previously failed to tell me it had found. I'm sure its a conspiracy to con people into upgrading to Windows 10.
To conclude by the time I leave a Windows computer I've usually got steam coming out of my ears and anger issues. Rant over.

In contrast my Arch laptop fires up in a heartbeat, updates in a heartbeat, functions in a heartbeat and shuts down in a heartbeat and it has never let me down. I dare say this is because it isn't clogged up with programs that I never have nor will use. I have Ubuntu and Xubuntu on my HDD but Arch wipes the floor with these distros also for speed.

I don't work in IT and I've only been using Arch for a matter of weeks. I love how hardly anybody in the Arch community spoon feeds you. They point you in the right direction to learn about it so you can work it out for yourself and understand whats going on.

Arch teaches you to wipe your own backside.
Ubuntu wipes it for you.
Windows tries to wipe it for you but fails miserably and spreads it everywhere.

Many thanks to everybody who has contributed to Arch over the years and made it what it is today. I feel that I'm in control of my computer rather than the other way round.

zbiko · 2016-07-23 18:56:58

Why is Arch the best? I hypothesize that the "rolling release" model is huge factor. Off-topic question: would anyone recommend a rolling release distro for noobs? I see openSUSE Tumbleweed as the strongest candidate for the not-quite-ready-for-Arch set.

Alad · 2016-07-23 18:58:46

If you can read a man page, and google the error message, you're ready for Arch.

nomorewindows · 2016-07-23 21:34:10

Alad wrote:

If you can read a man page, and google the error message, you're ready for Arch.

Or just the Arch forums search function (or even the firefox extension).

nomorewindows · 2016-07-23 21:39:07

simonj2099 wrote:

I've just had the thoroughly unpleasant experience of reinstalling Windows 7 on my wife's laptop. Up until a couple of days ago I had managed to successfully avoid the dark side (windoze, win**** or whatever you want to call it) for the last few years. My biggest mental scar has been left by the update process. The check for updates procedure seems to result in the scrolling blue line for up to an hour accompanied by the message "this may take some time" - Really?! You don't say! I say an hour but I genuinely believe this could go on for weeks if I leave the laptop on update for long enough. But I lose patience and stop the procedure after an hour - more often than not via the "end task" forced route - and go to shutdown because I have a life. The shutdown procedure is a lottery. If I'm lucky it shuts down after a minute without incident or if I'm not so lucky it takes an hour to shutdown whilst it installs all the updates that it had previously failed to tell me it had found. I'm sure its a conspiracy to con people into upgrading to Windows 10.
To conclude by the time I leave a Windows computer I've usually got steam coming out of my ears and anger issues. Rant over.
In contrast my Arch laptop fires up in a heartbeat, updates in a heartbeat, functions in a heartbeat and shuts down in a heartbeat and it has never let me down. I dare say this is because it isn't clogged up with programs that I never have nor will use. I have Ubuntu and Xubuntu on my HDD but Arch wipes the floor with these distros also for speed.
I don't work in IT and I've only been using Arch for a matter of weeks. I love how hardly anybody in the Arch community spoon feeds you. They point you in the right direction to learn about it so you can work it out for yourself and understand whats going on.
Arch teaches you to wipe your own backside.
Ubuntu wipes it for you.
Windows tries to wipe it for you but fails miserably and spreads it everywhere.
Many thanks to everybody who has contributed to Arch over the years and made it what it is today. I feel that I'm in control of my computer rather than the other way round.

When you try to design an OS that everybody can use, ironically nobody can use it.
But Arch only responds to its' creator, the geeky nerd that configured it to their hearts content trying to squeeze every once of awesomeness of out it possible.
And if it breaks, it was Allan's fault. So that's what the forums are for. It's the my system broke forum.

zbiko · 2016-07-25 01:25:19

Alad wrote:

If you can read a man page, and google the error message, you're ready for Arch.

And if you can use a German-English dictionary, you're ready to translate Sein und Zeit.

Alad · 2016-07-25 10:47:37

Considering this and your other posts, time to point to: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … o_trolling

Arch Linux

#1026 2016-01-15 12:10:43

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1027 2016-01-15 17:16:13

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#1028 2016-02-09 16:31:22

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#1029 2016-02-10 05:27:27

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#1030 2016-02-13 17:31:21

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#1031 2016-02-14 08:33:37

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#1032 2016-02-14 08:38:21

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#1033 2016-02-14 08:41:53

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#1034 2016-02-14 08:50:12

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#1035 2016-02-16 17:36:50

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#1036 2016-03-10 09:33:58

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#1037 2016-03-10 10:51:11

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#1038 2016-03-10 11:58:06

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#1039 2016-04-11 20:59:08

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#1040 2016-04-12 05:09:17

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#1041 2016-04-12 06:21:48

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#1042 2016-04-14 00:20:12

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#1043 2016-06-04 16:44:50

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1044 2016-06-13 22:53:59

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1045 2016-07-23 18:56:58

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1046 2016-07-23 18:58:46

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1047 2016-07-23 21:34:10

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1048 2016-07-23 21:39:07

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1049 2016-07-25 01:25:19

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1050 2016-07-25 10:47:37

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

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